Feasting in the Northern Oceans of Medieval Academia. Meat : comments.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
|
8
|
9
|
10 |
11
|
12
|
13
|
14
|
|
15
|
16
|
17
|
18
|
19
|
20
|
21
|
|
22
|
23
|
24
|
25
|
26
|
27
|
28
|
|
29
|
30
|
31
|
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
how to buy good meat
red meat should look red. It should not look greyish or brownish at all.
It should have a nice deep color. It should be moist but not slimmy to the touch. Marbling, a nice piece of beef should look like it's got little flecks of fat through out it. You want alot of little flecks and NOT big chunks. The little flecks melt, creating flavor and mouth feel. The big chunks just kinda stay there and are icky.
Poultry should be paleish yellow, depending on the feed used. It should definitely be paleish, it should be firm to the touch and not slimmy. If you're buying a whole bird, you want a nice white or yellow skin. Additionally, you do NOT want the wing tips to be discolored in anyway.
Poultry doesn't marble at all. What you want though is a good meat to bone ratio if you're buying whole. Skinny chickens are more money per pound of edible meat, than a nice big roaster.
Pork should be a pale pink color (or a redish color if it's dark meat) It should look moist and not be slimmy to the touch. You also want some good marbling on Pork if you can, but loins tend to be very lean actually.. so it's unlikely you'll see it.
lamb and game meat should look really burgundy in color.
Marbling is also your friend here.
Hope that helps..
btw.. the most important tip to buying good meat. Talk to your butcher, go back often, and be NICE to him/her.
Re: how to buy good meat
I've never been sure how to choose a butcher shop, so I've always shyly just bought prepack meat in the supermarket, even though I knew there must be better options. Part of the problem is crowds. I've gone to one of the butcher shops in Kensington Market a few times, but it's always very crowded, very busy. Now normally a busy shop is a good shop, and a recommendation, but it equally means I have to yell across the heads of others to talk to whichever whirling dervish of sales assistant is helping me. This is neither a good way of establishing a relationship with a butcher of any sort, nor an easy way of asking for advice, because the crowds also mean I can't see the display cases very well.
The other market, St. Lawrence, looked more promising in terms of being able to consult with the butcher about the meat for sale; it might also behoove me to check out some of the shops I went to the work of typing up for someone else's sake. Now, at least, thanks to you, I have a better sense for the incentives in finding a butcher to trust.